


take my love, take it down

by towine (blacktreecle)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Chapter 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21753877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktreecle/pseuds/towine
Summary: Sothis says gently, “Tell me about him.”Byleth sniffles. “What?”“I am certain you heard me,” Sothis snaps. She clears her throat, catching herself. “I mean— If you miss him, then talking about him may help.”“But you knew him, too. You’ve been around him as long as I have.”“Need I remind you that I was asleep for most of your life?” She can hear the eye roll in Sothis’s voice. “Besides, it matters not whatIthink of Jeralt Eisner. I want to hear whatyouthink.”Stranded in the middle of Faerghus wilds on a mission gone awry, Byleth thinks of her father.
Relationships: Jeralt Reus Eisner & My Unit | Byleth, My Unit | Byleth & Sothis
Comments: 8
Kudos: 77
Collections: FE3H Holiday Gift Exchange





	take my love, take it down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evoboo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evoboo/gifts).



> this is for evoboo, as part of the FE3H Holiday Exchange! it's byleth-centric with some exploration on her relationship with sothis and jeralt, with some sweet blue lions kids thrown in as well. i hope you enjoy it! and that you have a wonderful holiday season~
> 
> sincere thank you to my betas allie and pei for the help <3
> 
> oh, and the title is of course a reference to fleetwood mac's "landslide" which never ceases to make me feel all kinds of emotions

Byleth wakes to Sothis screaming at her.

The sound is distant, as if coming from underwater or through a pane of glass. Byleth can’t understand the words at all until they begin to grow louder and clearer as she rises to full consciousness.

“… ake up… up… Wake. Up!”

Byleth’s eyes fly open.

She shoots upright, only to immediately regret it at the shock of pain that lances through her side.

“Not so quickly, you fool, you are injured!” Sothis says, in a voice Byleth hasn’t heard so frantic since she jumped in front of an axe for Edelgard.

Byleth hisses and touches a hand to her abdomen. Sothis is right, it seems: her hand comes away wet with blood.

“Surely you have a concoction?” Sothis says, and though she only exists as a voice in Byleth’s head, she can imagine her hovering over her shoulder, expression knit with worry.

Through the pain and disorientation, Byleth manages to nod in response. She digs in her pack, fumbles with a bottle between her shaky fingers, and just manages to pry the stopper out and press the bottle to her lips.

The pain eases with the first swallow. With the next, she feels her flesh begin to stitch back together. It’s only an emergency fix, and in her head she can hear Mercedes’s oft repeated advice that proper bandaging and rest are the best remedies for any wound. But the bleeding has stopped and she can already breathe easier; it’s good enough for now.

With the pain mostly reduced to a dull ache, Byleth finally has the presence of mind to realize she is _freezing_.

And it has everything to do with the fact that she is sitting in the middle of snow-covered woods.

“You see now why I needed you to wake up?” Sothis tuts. “You would have died had you slept any longer.”

“Where—?” Byleth frowns, pushing herself up onto her feet. She folds her arms close to her body to cling to what little warmth she still possesses. It doesn’t help that her clothes are already soaked from lying on the ground.

“I do not know,” Sothis says grimly. “But I _do_ know that we need shelter, now, before night is upon us.”

There isn’t another soul in sight. Only spindly black trees with snow-covered branches, and dark clouds stretching far beyond them. There aren’t even footprints leading up to where Byleth found herself. How had she arrived here in the first place? Why is it so difficult to remember? Her head pounds, a possible explanation for her foggy recollection. That, coupled with the frigid cold, makes thinking a very difficult endeavor.

The wind blows harder, chilling Byleth even more thoroughly to the bone and sending snowflakes flurrying through the air. Sothis is right yet again. They cannot stay here.

“I don’t even know which way to go,” Byleth says. Some emotion pumps sluggishly through her veins, and her dulled senses take a moment to recognize it as the onset of panic.

“It doesn’t matter! Just pick one and go, we shall figure out the rest when death is no longer an immediate danger.”

There’s no arguing with Sothis even when Byleth isn’t drop-dead exhausted, so she glances up at the sky, picks out the direction of the setting sun to orient herself, and makes her way south.

They’re in Faerghus, Byleth recalls that much. The memories come back to her in bits and pieces, knitting themselves together with every crunching footstep through the snow.

A mission, a battle. Wyvern riders descending from the tree tops, the clash of sword and armor. Then—then…

“You fell,” Sothis tells her, and Byleth has long since stopped being surprised by the notion that Sothis can hear her thoughts as clear as if she had spoken them. “Or more accurately, you were dropped.”

“You remember and yet I don’t?” Byleth mutters, barely managing it around her chattering teeth.

“Falling from such a height can do a number on one’s head. It is not entirely surprising, is it?” Sothis sniffs. “Pray you do not have a concussion.”

Ah, that would make this day so much better. “What do you mean, ‘I was dropped’?” Byleth asks.

“A wyvern picked you up and dropped you,” Sothis explains simply. “You were fighting the bandits, as was assigned by your mission, when wyvern riders arrived and one plucked you into the air.”

“You make it sound like I didn’t put up a fight,” Byleth jokes weakly.

“Oh you fought, certainly. Your students fought as well, but it was a mistake leaving Ashe back at the monastery, it seems,” Sothis huffs, never above chiding Byleth for her mistakes. “An archer would have saved us all this trouble.”

“So I fought,” Byleth clarifies, “and freed myself when I was high in the air, I presume.”

“Correct. Luckily for you, the snow in Faerghus lies especially thick.”

“Lucky me.” Byleth sighs, then winces at the sting of the wound in her side. The result of the wyvern’s claws, no doubt.

This is all her fault, then. It was true, she decided to leave Ashe back at the monastery. He’d been working hard all month to pass his promotional exam, and she knew he needed the rest, even if Ashe himself would never willingly choose to sit out from a mission. Losing their designated sharp shooter, however temporarily, seemed like a good opportunity to challenge her students, to teach them how to adapt to different battle scenarios.

But a mistake is a mistake. It seems there is still more for Byleth to learn.

“There is no use dwelling on it,” Sothis says. “Look, there is something ahead.”

Every step feels harder and harder to make with the cold seeping into Byleth’s limbs, but she pushes forward. There is a dark shape ahead: a low, rocky hill, part of it jutting out enough to make as good a makeshift shelter as Byleth will find out here.

She could almost weep upon seeing it, and the intensity of the emotion nearly staggers her in its novelty. She has never felt so relieved.

“Hold yourself together, you’re nearly there!” Sothis sounds surprised as well.

When she finally makes it to the shallow cavern, Byleth collapses on the ground. She curls into herself, shivering violently. The ground is cold, but she doesn’t have enough strength to lift herself from it. She feels she has no strength at all.

“You cannot lie down, you need a fire,” Sothis stresses. “There is much I can do for you, but you know I cannot do this.” When Byleth rests her eyes for just a moment, she can see Sothis in her mind’s eye with her hands on her hips, pouting angrily. “You’re going to freeze!”

Byleth lets her eyes stay closed for one more second, just one more. Then she says with a weak breath, “You’re right.”

Painstakingly placing her hands on the ground beneath her, she pushes herself up with shaky limbs. She thinks she feels Sothis trying to pull her up too, in whatever metaphysical sense she can, and it encourages Byleth enough to force herself upright.

She slumps against the cavern wall, her legs stretched limply out in front of her. She’s exhausted.

“Fire,” Sothis prods again.

Byleth raises her hands and turns them palms up.

There is a spell Annette showed her once, a simple one for keeping hands warm. Byleth has not ventured into the studies of Reason much beyond what she needs to know to guide the mages in her class, but she can do this much. She frowns in concentration, feels the magic gather at her fingertips.

A flame bursts into life in her hands.

“Ah, careful!” Sothis yelps at the precise moment Byleth gasps and nearly drops it.

She concentrates harder, willing the flame to smooth and mellow into a gentle glow. Warmth begins to seep back into her fingers.

“Finally,” Sothis sighs. “Let us rest now, shall we?”

“Yeah.” Byleth watches the flame tiredly, and in any other circumstance, she’d feel proud of herself for practicing her almost non-existent magic skills. But as it is, she is exhausted, cold, wet, bruised, and—she realizes with a pinched ache in her stomach—starving.

Her students have been left to fend for themselves without their professor, to fight against bandits that they may not be adequately equipped to take on, in the Faerghus wilds in the middle of winter. Byleth has utterly failed them, getting herself stranded like this. She is at a loss. She is directionless. She is alone.

Byleth droops, curling into herself.

She whispers, “I miss him.”

Sothis doesn’t ask for clarification. She feels all that Byleth feels, after all.

“I miss him,” Byleth says again, more brokenly. She folds her knees beneath her chin, the flame in her hands dimming to a weak flicker.

It’s pathetic, she knows. But Jeralt would know what to do, what to say, would tell her how to keep moving forward. It’s been two weeks since losing him, and though she has done her best to hold herself together, it hasn’t been enough time at all to acclimate to his absence.

She can’t imagine ever getting used to it. And moments like these remind her just how much she needs him.

Byleth’s eyes burn. She sucks in a breath and hunches further into herself. There is silence, nothing but the wind howling past her little shelter.

Then Sothis says gently, “Tell me about him.”

Byleth sniffles. “What?”

“I am certain you heard me,” Sothis snaps. She clears her throat, catching herself. “I mean— If you miss him, then talking about him may help.”

“But you knew him, too. You’ve been around him as long as I have.”

“Need I remind you that I was asleep for most of your life?” She can hear the eye roll in Sothis’s voice. “Besides, it matters not what _I_ think of Jeralt Eisner. I want to hear what _you_ think.”

Byleth leans her head back until it thumps gently against the rocky wall behind her. She thinks. She misses Jeralt more than she’s ever missed anything, but to suddenly explain exactly what it is she misses about him feels like a monumental task. Random odd moments float up to her from the foggy depths of her memories, but none of them feel adequate enough to sum up just how important Jeralt was to her life.

“Do not think so hard,” Sothis says, snapping Byleth out of her tangled thoughts. “It need not be that complicated, simply say whatever you wish.”

Byleth hums, looking down at her hands. “He… was a really bad singer.”

“What?” Sothis laughs.

The corners of Byleth’s mouth twitch upwards. “It’s true. He was always dead silent when fishing or on a mission, but at home… He had very poor taste in music. And an even poorer singing voice.”

Sothis outright chortles at that, a loud, snorting laugh that feels utterly unbefitting of a Goddess, but it makes Byleth grin.

“And his dancing was even worse.” Byleth snickers as she recalls it, Jeralt attempting some sort of terrible dance to make her younger self laugh after a bad nightmare, claiming that it was a ritual to keep evil spirits away. Byleth was never fooled, but Jeralt always did it anyway, anything to help her feel better after another dream full of battles and blood.

“He always comforted me after nightmares,” she says quietly, staring at the flickers of flame between her fingertips. “Even though I didn’t cry or get upset or anything, he could tell when I had bad dreams.”

Her mouth opens to say more, but her voice halts in her throat. The air in her lungs grows thin, her chest constricts.

He was a good father, she wants to say. But that’s obvious, isn’t it? Anyone could tell Jeralt cared for her, that he was just as good a father as he was a mercenary, a captain, a knight.

But she never told him that before he died. She never told him a lot of things, and those things haunt her, infecting her every thought and feeling. Jeralt was relieved to see her tears for him, but how long had he spent not knowing for certain whether Byleth loved him? How long did he think he was an unfit father all along, or perhaps—that Byleth was an unfit daughter?

“ _Don’t_ —” Sothis starts, and Byleth can feel the breadth of her anger. “That is not true.”

“There’s no way to know,” Byleth says, resigned. “Not anymore.”

“There are _plenty_ of ways to know!” Sothis bursts, startling Byleth enough to make the fire in her hand flare. “He left the monastery to keep you safe. He taught you everything he knew, and well enough to make you a professor at Garreg Mach. And he taught you not only the necessary skills of a mercenary, but the things he loved as well, like fishing, and the bad songs he knew, and his horrid dancing.”

Sothis’s restless energy hums within Byleth, and she gets the sense that Sothis would take her shoulders and shake them if she could.

“It is obvious to anyone that Jeralt loved you,” Sothis says, and Byleth’s eyes burn anew. “And I am certain he knew you loved him in return.”

Byleth swallows a shaky breath. “I—I hope so,” she says.

“That is all any of us can do,” Sothis says.

Byleth blinks away the wetness still clinging to her eyelashes. She breathes in again. She feels steadier when she does, and the warmth of the fire radiates a little deeper.

She wants to say something, but she thinks it instead, something just for Sothis.

“You are welcome,” Sothis says, awkwardly but sincerely, and Byleth smiles. “Tell me more about him.”

Byleth does, but not with any words. She closes her eyes and remembers all the things Jeralt did for her or with her, things big and small. Teaching her to hold a sword, bandaging her wounds, kissing her forehead in good night. Reassuring her when she doubted her ability to lead a class of students, to set them on the right path. Sothis sifts through the memories with her, and they do this until Byleth’s eyelids start to feel heavy.

“I will keep watch,” Sothis promises as Byleth drifts off to a peaceful, quiet sleep.

* * *

Byleth feels warmth.

It’s no longer hovering at her hands, as she’d dispersed the flame before falling asleep. Now the warmth is everywhere. It feels like sunlight.

She cracks her eyes open. It _is_ sunlight.

“Good morning,” Sothis chirps. “Had a good nap, I take it?”

Byleth yawns, stretching her arms over her head. She’s sore all over. Not entirely surprising, for one who fell from a wyvern.

But the sun is out, and that already has her feeling leagues better than before.

“How long?” she asks groggily, rubbing an eye.

“Just through the night. And now that the sun is here, I’d say it’s time to get moving!” Sothis mentally nudges at her.

“Okay, okay,” Byleth concedes, and she glances out of the cavern and towards the surrounding forest. She blinks. “Actually, I don’t think there’s any need to go anywhere.”

“What? Are you planning on living in the Faerghus woods now?” Sothis scoffs. Then she realizes what Byleth sees: movement on the horizon; people, bearing familiar uniforms of black and gold and a distinct shade of blue. “Oh!”

Byleth smiles and rises to her feet.

Dimitri reaches her first, racing through the snow on horseback. He drops from the horse as soon as he’s near, nearly falling over himself in the mad dash to greet her. Snow flies in his wake.

“Professor!” he gasps, grabbing her by the arms. He stares wide-eyed as if she’s a phantom. “Oh, Professor.”

Ingrid arrives next, landing deftly beside them on her pegasus. There are tears in her eyes, and she chokes back a sob as she breathes, “Thank the Goddess.”

Dedue and Mercedes follow not far behind. The class had split up, it seems, in their search for her.

Mercedes hurries forward and lays a hand on Byleth’s shoulder, quickly murmuring a healing spell that washes over Byleth with a familiar warmth. “Are you badly injured anywhere?” she asks, ever the concerned healer.

“No, I’m alright—”

“Professor.” Dedue holds out something wrapped in a cloth. “You must be starving, please take this.”

“Thank you, Dedue, I—”

“And take my cloak,” Dimitri insists, already unfastening his fur-lined cloak from his shoulders. “You must be freezing—”

“Everyone!” Byleth holds her hands out. “Please, no need to fuss. I promise I’m alright.”

“Forgive me for saying so, Professor, but you look a little worse for wear.” Mercedes tilts her head as she examines her.

“Well, I did spend the night in a cave,” Byleth admits.

Ingrid gasps and Dimitri makes a sound of abject despair.

“Please accept my sincerest apologies!” he says, bowing his head. “Had I been faster or stronger, this never would have happened. I should have taken out that wyvern, I—”

Byleth places her hand atop Dimitri’s head.

She has to reach rather high to do so, but it’s worth it to see Dimitri freeze as she ruffles his hair. Perhaps the exhaustion is affecting her judgment, but it simply feels like the right thing to do.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, dropping her hand. “None of you are at fault. I’m just grateful to you all for finding me.”

Dimitri continues to stand frozen in place, flustered and gaping. Dedue murmurs a concerned, “Your Highness?” at him. Mercedes giggles.

“Let’s get back to the others,” Ingrid says, and holds a hand out to help Byleth onto her pegasus. “Shall we, Professor?”

It doesn't take long to reunite with the rest of the class. Annette outright bursts into tears, Sylvain cheers and throws an arm over Byleth’s shoulders, and Felix scowls and hisses, “Don’t you dare disappear like that again.”

They all clamber around her, pushing in like they need to be close to her again, like the time they spent apart was far too long, even if it couldn’t have been longer than half a day. But she’s glad to see all of their faces again. And it’s warm, being surrounded by them like this. It feels right.

The journey back to the monastery is a long one, and her students take the opportunity to recount how they dealt with the bandits after Byleth’s disappearance. The strategies and techniques they describe have Byleth intrigued, as well as relieved to know they’ve truly learned a lot from her lessons. She mentally notes certain topics to discuss next week and feels eager to get back to the classroom.

Through all this, Byleth can feel Sothis’s amusement. She raises an eyebrow, asking a silent question.

“Oh nothing,” Sothis says, bright like a chiming bell. “I just know Jeralt would be proud of you.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
